Forest School
This Year's Forest School Stats
Number of sessions delivered every year
Number of children attending
How many magical location around the Island
What Is Forest School?
Accessed by over 200 children every week, Forest School is our term time project that operates twice daily every weekday. Working with whole classes of children from the Islands Primary and Secondary Schools, our Forest School leaders give children the freedom to explore themselves and each other through playing in one of our beautiful and diverse woodlands.
Children are introduced to woodland tools including knives, saws, drills and axes with which they learn to create their own tools, art work and structures; they are also allowed to light controlled fires to explore, keep warm and cook on.
Whilst each session always contains facilitated activities based on the children’s interests; children are never under any obligation to take part in any of these and can follow their own interests and do their ‘own thing’ at any point.
A program of Forest School typically runs once a week over a period of 8 weeks. Schools are asked to make a contribution to help cover the cost of resources, but we subsidise a large portion of the costs through our charitable funds.
Click here to enquire about availability for Forest School
Our Ethics
The Forest School ethos has six principles, which were agreed by the UK Forest School community in 2011.
The six guiding principles of Forest School are given below. Criteria for good practice relating to each are listed below.
Forest School Principles in full (Click to Expand)
1. Forest School is a long-term process of frequent and regular sessions in a woodland or natural environment, rather than a one-off visit. Planning, adaptation, observations and reviewing are integral elements of Forest School.
2. Forest School takes place in a woodland or natural wooded environment to support the development of a relationship between the learner and the natural world.
3. Forest School aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners
4. Forest School offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
5. Forest School is run by qualified Forest School practitioners who continuously maintain and develop their professional practice.
6. Forest School uses a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for development and learning
Forest School, like all our projects, strives to be completely inclusive. Here you can see the children from Ramsey fla4 and star unit taking part.